This is the story of how the UK banking system could have collapsed in the early 1990s, but for the forbearance of a junior barrister who also happened to be an expert in computer law - and who discovered that at that time the computing department of one of the banks issuing ATM cards had "gone rogue", cracking PINs and taking …

OK, we've got a lot of things to get through today, so let's get started. As Steve Jobs usually says, introducing another load of, um, stuff.
So on Wednesday he unveiled a desktop computer with a remote control; iPods that can play video; and an updated iTunes Music Store that will sell you videos, and if you live in the US, …

Apple Computer has finally laid to rest the ghost of former chief exec Gil Amelio, yesterday unveiling gross revenues of $13.93bn and a net profit of $1.335bn, following its best-ever fourth (or any) quarter with revenues of $3.658bn and profit of $430m.
At last, the folks at Cupertino won't have to compare themselves to the …

With surprising regularity, Britain's Daily Mail, a mid-market tabloid, runs a heartwarming story about a puppy or kitten that has survived some awful domestic appliance encounter (trapped in the washing machine/freezer/breadmaker) and is photographed, bedraggled, in the aftermath. Everyone go "Awwww!"
And now we bring you El …

"Hello, yes, I'm on the train. We're just about to go into a tunnel... hello? Hello?"
Now that we've sorted out whether anyone will want to download music onto their mobile while travelling, let's move on to the meatier issue: are people going to use them in the manner of iPods to listen to music, and thus replace that and …

The people have spoken, and Apple has heard them. Sort of. On Tuesday night the computer and music player company admitted that there are problems with the screen of the new iPod Nano, just three working days after The Register broke the story.
Correction: a problem with one manufacturing batch, affecting "less than one-tenth …

OK, let's see if we can find some good news about the iPod Nano. Hey, here's some: Jim Allchin, head of Microsoft's Windows division, bought one the day it came out. Talk about sleeping with the enemy!
Umm...oh. He says it stopped working after a day. "They have moisture issues," he said. (You're really not supposed to take it …

People slavering to get Apple's "impossibly small" iPod Nano into their sticky hands may want to pause a moment: those ahead of them in the queue have discovered that it's also unbelievably easy to scratch the screen, nixing its photo-displaying abilities.
Apple's discussion forums are already host to a 188-post thread on the …

Prepare yourself now for some triumphant headlines in the coming months from rivals of Apple's iPod - along the lines of 'Apple MP3 player market share drops'. And you know what? Apple half-expects them too. Why? Because its new iPod Nano is going to be so hugely successful, taking over as the world's most popular MP3 player …

The iPod's global popularity has been revealed as an agent of environmental destruction in which the entire country of New Zealand was only saved by a quick-thinking owner and his freezer cabinet.
A report on the Pestnet discussion forum, where people in the Pacific region gather to discuss, well, pests, reveals that an …

The music and ringtone business is being ripped off to the tune of £75m per year, as people grab free previews of ringtones via PCs and transfer them to their phones, says software company QPass.
The company studied 100 "leading" download sites - 42 mobile carrier portals, and 58 "online entertainment" and music stores offering …

We notice that you were very interested by the news that Dell has closed its customer support boards (on the US site). We had asked the company itself to explain why; and within just two days of our urgent request, it managed to unburden itself of the following response, which we quote in full.
"Effective Friday, July 8, 2005 …

Want to complain on Dell's website about its customer service? Too late - the Customer Support Forums, operational until last Friday, have been shut down, apparently to try to quell bad publicity there about Dell products and especially after-care service.
While all the other equipment forums are still working - last time we …

Analysis
It's G8 week, and climate change is high on the agenda. And now that even George Bush has acknowledged that climate change is (a) happening and (b) is at least partly due to humans but insisted it (c) should be tackled through technology, why not focus again on a technology that's (1) happening and (2) partly controlled by …

Another day, another lawsuit from the record labels. Except this time - what's this? They're suing a different part of the music business. Yes, the BPI on Thursday announced that it is taking the MCPS (the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society) to the Copyright Tribunal, complaining that the MCPS is charging too much for …

Analysis
We thought we'd let the dust settle before examining Microsoft's announcement that it will incorporate RSS support in Longhorn, and the upcoming IE7 release (in a service pack for XP).
Why? Because the haze cast by the conflicting claims and counter-claims means that you're not going to get much sense of what's really …

"Podcasting goes mainstream", announced Apple on Tuesday, with the launch of version 4.9 of its iTunes music jukebox software - at the same time as upgrading and simplifying its iPod (but not iPod mini) line by giving them all colour screens and the ability to show album cover artwork or photos.
The "white iPods" now come in …

Analysis
Los Angeles! New York! Paris, France! Berlin! London! Like the leaders of a pair of heavy metal rock bands pimping their new album, the big names from Seagate and Hitachi have been touring the world these past couple of weeks, touting their latest wonder - the Defeat of Superparamagnetism. (Be honest, you can imagine a vinyl LP …

Set yourself a challenge when next you're in Paraguay: see if you can buy a non-pirated CD. According to latest figures on CD piracy released by the IFPI, the record companies' global organisation, 99 per cent of CDs there come from people saying "Arr-harr!".
Worldwide, 1.2bn pirated discs were sold in 2004, making 34 per cent …

Bram Cohen, inventor of the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol, has launched a stinging attack on Microsoft's "Avalanche" peer-to-peer system unveiled (sort of) last week by its Cambridge (UK) researchers.
In a posting on his blog, Cohen - whose protocol is (over?)estimated to be responsible for one-third of the world's internet …

The theme of the person awaking from a deep sleep or coma to find a world utterly changed is a popular one in science fiction. From John Wyndham's book The Day of The Triffids through The Omega Man to the recent film 28 Days Later, the trope of the man arising from his hospital bed to find that nothing is as it was has become …

Review
Steve Jobs knows a thing or two about publicity. He gave a fantastic dollop to the latest unauthorised biography about him - "iCon: Steve Jobs - The Greatest Second Act in The History of Business", by Jeffrey S. Young and William L. Simon - by pulling all copies of all books by the publisher, John Wiley, from Apple's retail …

Never underestimate the resourcefulness, or perhaps parsimoniousness, of Register readers. After last week's article pointing out how emailed data is liable to VAT, quite a few people responded along the lines of "Durr - why not just burn a CD and put it in the post? Won't that escape VAT?"
And the answer? Yes, it will avoid …

Now here's a nice wrinkle of the laws governing this place that Tony Blair wanted to be "the best place for ecommerce anywhere in the world". If you send commercial data by email or over the Web, it's liable for VAT (17.5 per cent value-added tax, imposed in the UK on services) on the value of the data. Which of course with …

The record industry is targeting nearly 1,000 people in a new wave of lawsuits against alleged "illegal song-swappers" in actions in 11 countries in Europe and Asia.
Following its first year of legal actions in Europe, which resulted in 248 people paying fines or facing "sanctions", the International Federation of the …